Kite
by celerity
Summary: Lyra's side of the story told in 'Merman'. Not desperately original I know, but please R&R.


Disclaimer: As ever, there are characters and many other elements contained herein which are taken from the 'His Dark Materials' series, and as such they are all © Philip Pullman and I'd better reassure you all that I am not making any money out of this. More's the pity. Only kidding. The rest (you can distinguish it by the lameness) is mine, I guess. Magnus belongs to me in a sense, but he wouldn't thank you to say so. The songs 'Kite' and 'Grace' belong to the legendary U2 and can be found on the album 'All That You Can't Leave Behind'.

This is my second HDM fanfic and is intended as a companion piece to my earlier effort 'Merman'. This one, 'Kite', is Lyra's side of the story - hope you like. I know writing two parts of the same story hardly shows breathtaking originality, but if I write any more HDM fanfic I promise I'll try to be more adventurous. I therefore apologise for any déjà vu you might get when reading this, but it's hard to avoid some retreading when telling the same story twice. ;) And I'm sorry Magnus is a bit of a pompous, embittered fool, but that's just how he turned out. :p

N.B. Despite living on this planet for sixteen years and counting, I have yet to master the geography or even the basic physics of it (spot the blatant HHGG quote) and so if my descriptions of Oxford, Bodley's etc. are all utterly inaccurate, let's just say it's different in Lyra's world. ;) Anyway, enough waffling: any reviews or other feedback extremely welcome, you know the drill. :)

~ Celerity, 12/8/01

(revised 6/9/01)

'Grace, she covers the shame, removes the stain

It could be her name

Grace, it's a name for a girl

It's also a thought that changed the world

And when she walks on the street you can hear the strings

Grace finds goodness in everything

Grace finds beauty in everything

She carries a pearl in perfect condition

What once was hurt, what once was friction

What left a mark no longer stings

Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things

Grace finds beauty in everything

Grace finds goodness in everything…'

- U2, 'Grace'

From the personal records of Magnus H. Gardiner M.A. Hons, F.L.D.A, resident professor of history and alethiometry at St Stephen's College, Oxford.

_Estella Marianne Gardiner_

_Requiescat in pace_

A pale moon looks down on me as I walk up the old stone-cobbled street. The graveyard stands hushed and reverent in the misted darkness as I hover on the edge, unsure of whether to enter or whether to turn back to the warm chambers and the log-fire I have left behind. Moriana, perched on my shoulder, ruffles her feathers uneasily and shifts her weight from foot to foot. Her claws dig into my shoulder like quiet needles as I make my decision and open the wooden gate, damp and shapeless to my night-shattered gaze. The path is as I remember; perhaps here and there a clump of unruly grass has escaped the gardener's eye and sprawls over the quiet flagstones, or the trail of an adventurous snail glistens silver in the moonlight. I move on past stones that rise out of the gloom beside me like silent shadowed soldiers. My academic robes were not designed for resisting the weather, and the ermine trim helps me little as I shiver my way through between the yews. I fear I am growing a little too old for these excursions. Nevertheless, my feet remember the way and lead me unerringly to the spot.

Beneath the spreading arms of a dark tree standing eternal guard, nestled in the hollowed prison of its surfacing roots, lies her grave. The stone is a small one; I recall my angry negotiations with the stonesmith trying to reconcile my great hurt with my limited means. I kneel on the damp mounded grass and reach over for the small crystal vase. The flowers it contains are darkened with rot, wilted and bent double like old men. I cast them aside and replace them with the blooms I have brought with me. Black orchids, their twisted contours folding and unfolding on themselves in a complex structure visible even to my failing eyes. I replace the vase with trembling fingers. Moss is beginning to grow over her name, creeping up in an inexorable green seep from the damp ground. I scrape it away as best I can. Moriana hops down from my shoulder and joins me, scratching mutely away at the stone with her beak. Soon my fingers are numb and my nails bleeding, but the moss is clear and her name spelled out in silent earthy testament on the grey stone. We sit together, my dæmon and I, and we wait. We wait for the earth to quake, for the timbre of a voice that will never sound again. We wait for a resolution. We wait for the morning to come bringing with it the painful familiarity of a routine that will drive away the devils following me from this spot.

The last is the only to occur. I get up slowly with creaking knee, hold out my arm for Moriana to occupy, and return down the winding path out into a grey dawn that leads me back to reality.

* * *

I entered my office that morning in a mood of severe discontent. I had been up half the night marking papers on the Tartar invasion, my least favourite subject, by some of the most linguistically deficient students I had ever come across. My patience and my time had been extensively eroded. The last thing I had been hoping to see was a red-sealed white envelope lying crisply on the desk, written in the familiar hand of Mayor Parrish's secretary. I sat down heavily in my big leather-padded chair, Moriana perching precariously and apprehensively on the mahogany arm, and picked up the missive with trepidation.

Being the most senior and probably the only professor or alethiometry in Oxford had its advantages: the respect, the aura of mystery, the large comfortable office deep in the peaceful heart of St Stephen's. But my post also meant I had various civic duties. One of these, and the one I dreaded, was to serve as an official at the more important trials. It had long been custom for cases that were particularly significant, or unclear, or unsuited to trial by jury, to be handed over to an alethiometrist. Of course I did not object to the principle; I will admit I rather enjoyed the ceremony and the responsibility, but I did not relish the prospect of sharing company with the law officials. In general I had found them to be ignorant, foolish men with no conception of the time and effort that went into reading the alethiometer. They seemed to think of it as some kind of peculiarly accurate fairground fortune-teller, to be consulted with as much ease and rapidity as a dictionary. All too often they expected instantaneous responses to the most complicated questions of blame and circumstance.

And worst of all, the summons reminded me of Estella. The last concrete memory I had of her alive was her laughing, smiling through her pallid, sickness-drained complexion and telling me jokingly to do my part for justice. I had left her there, and when I had returned the part of her that mattered had departed for good. I could still see her there, dæmonless, empty and marble-white when I returned. On an impulse I picked up the faded framed photogram on my desk and stroked her image with a quaking thumb.

It was with a heavy, wary heart that I finally opened the envelope and unfolded the carefully scribed letter. My heart sank as I saw the official seal of the Department of Justice on the letterhead. It was as I had thought.

The letter read:

_Dear Mr Gardiner _

_ We should presume to trouble you on another matter which we would assign to the jurisdiction of the alethiometer. Please find enclosed details of the case in question. We would be grateful if you would report to the Hall of Justice at two o'clock today. The Master expects you at Jordan College before this time, to meet with their professor of alethiometry Miss Lyra Silvertongue, who will assist you in this matter. We thank you for your support. _

_W. Q. Parrish _

_Mayor _

I squinted again at the last few sentences, incredulous.

'Lyra Silvertongue?' said Moriana curiously, leaning forward and peering at the manuscript with her keen eyes.

I knew only a little about the woman mentioned in the letter. She was the daughter of the notorious Lord Asriel, the illegitimate product of his affair with the scholar and society beauty Marisa Coulter. I had heard nothing good of her parents. They had both perished, it was assumed, when they were in the North during the great disturbances which had occurred about fifteen years previously. As for the daughter, she had returned alive to Jordan College before enrolling in Dame Hannah's establishment, and had disappeared from public view. There had been theories, gossip, wild conjecture; but aside from the fact that she possessed an alethiometer, and that she had been alternately studying at Jordan and travelling for the last few years, little concrete information could be obtained. Interest in her had died down soon after the pity for her orphaned state.

'A professor of alethiometry? At her age?'

'Apparently so,' observed Moriana, rocking back and closing her eyes.

I was fuming. It was enough of a humiliation to have to endure my ordeal this afternoon without having some novice, no doubt conceited from all the attention that had been paid her, following me around. And a professor, at barely thirty? I looked up at my own diploma in its gilt frame on the wall. It had taken me the best part of fifty years to earn that precious qualification. Was it now to be devalued by some upstart girl barely out of college?

I crumpled up the letter and threw it in the wastepaper basket. Then I realised I had not yet read the attached details. I cursed mildly, rooted around and fished them out, jammed them into my jacket pocket and swept out of the room. Moriana flapped morosely behind me and reached my shoulder as I strode down the corridor.

St Stephen's College, the place which had been my home, my seat of learning and my place of work for as long as I could remember, was a grand and beautiful place. Not as grand as some other colleges in the city, perhaps: it paled to Jordan and its fellows in terms of architecture and history. But even in its relative youth and small stature there was a charm and an individuality that instilled a fierce sense of loyalty and pride in its fellows. Even on a morning like this I could not help but notice the handsome wood panelling of the corridor I walked, or the polished dark sheen of the staircase I went down on my way out of the building. I exchanged a brief greeting with the busy clerk in the entrance hall, then left through the heavy door propped open in the summer heat.

It was a beautiful day, and on another occasion I might have been in the humour to enjoy it. But my letter had cast a storm over my thoughts, and my mood, combined with the heavy dark robes it was demanded I should wear for judicial situations, could not be dispelled. And so, instead of walking the short distance to Jordan in the blazing sunshine, I decided to take the tram.

It proved a bad choice. If anything, it was hotter inside the carriage than out, and it was packed full of commuters going to work, families with crotchety children on holiday, and all manner of dæmons squawking, barking, yelping and tussling in the aisles and on the patched brown seats. Moriana huddled herself small in a corner and pretended to fall asleep.

By the time I had descended the tram in front of the imposing structure of Jordan, I was tired, hotter than ever, apprehensive and irritable. I walked straight in through the half-open door.

A wave of coolness hit me as I entered the hall. The stone construction of the building meant that the college escaped the worst of the day's heat. I felt like I had just dived into a dark pool. I walked slowly through the hall, my steps echoing on the floor. Tall pillars rose all around me to a vaulted ceiling that reminded me of a chapel. Light shafted in through tall glass windows high up in the walls. The effect was hushed and profoundly beautiful.

'Mr Gardiner?'

I turned around to see a pale, nervous-looking young man in simple clothes with an anxious, panting spaniel-dæmon looking at me. I hazarded he might be a college servant.

'Yes?'

'The Master sends his greetings. He asked me to show you to the library.'

'Bodley's Library?'

'Yes. Miss Silvertongue is occupied there at present, but you may wait for her there and leave when she is finished.' He shifted his weight and the movement echoed on the stone.

'Of course. Thank you.'

He bowed clumsily and set off for a doorway leading off the hall. I followed him with Moriana's heavy wingbeats sounding close to my ear.

Jordan College was opulent and dishevelled. It had been built sometime in the distant past, and improved on and extended over the years, so that its diverse parts were in varying states of repair. Its hotchpotch history showed in the mingling of Gothic, classical and endless other styles in its dark wooded corridors and vaulted, wormwood-beamed chambers. We passed through quiet study rooms, where robed and messy-haired students sat bent over books, staring out of windows or sleeping. I soon lost my bearings in the labyrinthine space. I could only keep following the stooped figure in front of me and the smaller form of the pattering dog-dæmon, afraid of falling behind them and being lost forever.

It must have taken us a good ten minutes before we arrived at a heavy oak door somewhere in an older section of the college. The servant opened the door and stood back, bowing.

'Thank you,' I said, and walked past him into the room. I heard the clicking of his shoes and the skittering of his dog's claws on the stone fading away as I looked around me.

Bodley's Library was famed for being perhaps the most complete and diverse collection of books in the country, if not the world. And I could well believe it, as I stood there dwarfed by rows and rows of shelving, reaching up so high that moveable wheeled ladders leant against them to provide access to the upper tiers. And that was not all; above those upper shelves there were yet more layers of books, with a sort of wooden gangway that was reached from the ground by a long ladder.

And it was not just the height that stunned me. The number of bookcases and shelves crowding the room made the library an impossible labyrinth, which once you were inside it, as I now was, made navigation of any kind extremely difficult. I began to doubt the possibility of ever finding my way out, let alone the person I was supposed to meet. But I kept on with Moriana perched on my shoulder, both of us in awe of our surroundings.

As I walked, the state of the library became gradually more shambolic. From the pristine, new-bound and card-catalogued order of the opening, I made my way through the jungle of shelves towards a more chaotic beyond. All around me were books; old and new, dull browns and bright colours, they lay sprawled on the ledges like slumbering drunkards. The mildewed smell they gave out soon surrounded me, and the dust that floated from their dry, flaking pages coated my clothes. Here and there a yellowing tag, written by some long-dead librarian from the musty past, denoted in spidery brown writing 'Physik' or 'Magyk and the Black Artes'. The further reaches of the library were dominated by the older books, gnarled specimens that looked as though they had grown on the woodwormed shelves like some bizarrely beautiful fungus. The light varied considerably. The naphtha lamps hung unlit from the ceiling, but here and there light from a window or a skylight filtered in to illuminate the dark rows of volumes.

'St Stephens's library has nothing to compare to this,' I breathed as I passed between yet more leather-bound marvels.

'I should think ours is marginally better organised,' replied Moriana peevishly, preening her tawny feathers as she perched on the black cover of an ageing dictionary.

I had to agree. Our library was catalogued, precise and orderly; it could not be more different from the sprawling, beautiful madness that was Bodley's.

I made my way carefully through the strange wonderland, pausing now and again to inspect a tome that caught my eye. I was studying a particularly intriguing Turkish translation of the 'Iliad' when I heard someone speak behind me.

'I believe we have the 'Odyssey' counterpart to that volume if you'd like to see it.'

The tone was a woman's. I turned around, feeling somewhat guilty. The owner of the voice stood close to one of the small iron-worked windows, which was flung open to the sunshine. A beam of light shone through the opening, silhouetting her and sparkling in the dust motes and the flyaway strands of her hair. From what I could see, squinting in the brightness, she was occupied in moving large books from a box onto a sturdy table.

'I'm sorry, I was only browsing.'

I could detect a little amusement in her reply. 'Don't be sorry. This is a library. That's what it's for.'

She put down the volumes she had been carrying, making a loud thump on the table and raising a cloud of dust which swirled up and glittered in the shaft of light. She wiped her hands on her clothes – I noticed with shock that she was wearing loose baggy trousers of some kind – and walked towards me, her features becoming clear as she stepped out of the light. I blinked dustily at her.

'You'll have to excuse my attire,' she said, holding out her hand and clasping mine in a firm grip. 'I find this work too messy for skirts.'

I had heard Lyra Silvertongue, daughter of Lord Asriel and Marisa Coulter, described as a beauty. Perhaps my judgement had been spoiled by meeting the royal families of Gdansk and New Denmark, but I found myself thinking that this must have been the judgement of some over-excited student. To my eye, seeing her there in her dusty clothes with her tumbleweed of dark blonde hair tied haphazardly up and her pale blue eyes watching me with a mixture of quiet interest and challenge, she was a potentially pretty girl who had been spoiled by a scholarly background. I had met Lord Asriel at a diplomatic dinner once, and I could see little family resemblance, except for a certain stubborn determination in the set of her chin. As for her famously beautiful mother, the only legacy she seemed to have left was a wilfulness to which I put down her eccentric choice of clothing and her slightly irreverent manner. I thought of the time I would have to spend working with her, and my heart sank.

'I assume you're Mr Gardiner?' she said, releasing my hand. Her dæmon had been sitting, a mute silhouette, on the table behind her; as she spoke he flowed down to stand beside her. He was a ruddy-furred pine marten, and he watched Moriana with beady black eyes.

'I am.' I replied. 'Miss Silvertongue, I presume?'

She smiled. 'The very same.'

She began to move back to the table. There was a curious lightness in her walk, as if her feet did not quite touch the ground. She picked up the pile of books. Not knowing what else to do, I stood and watched as she took them over to a side shelf and, having dumped them unceremoniously on the floor, began looking through a card catalogue. I took off my glasses and wiped them on my jacket.

She turned round, kneeling on the ground by the books. 'Would you give me a hand, please?'

I was frozen by her audacity for the moment. Here I was, a distinguished guest in her college, and she dared to give me menial work? Moriana rattled her feathers in flustered disbelief.

'I'm sorry to have to ask you, but if we both work at this it'll be done that much sooner, and we can get down to business.' She and her dæmon stared at me. There was a studied seriousness in her manner which I had mistaken before for resentment. She picked up a pile of heavy, mouldering tomes and held them out expectantly.

'Of course,' I found myself saying, albeit a little coldly, and I took the rough hide-covered books over to the table, and began writing their details on the little yellowed cards.

We worked in silence for a while. Occasionally, she would bring over another pile of books for me to catalogue. The library, despite the dust and the odour of the books, was a warm and peaceful place. I watched her over the top of my pile of volumes as she rocked back on her heels, surveying the shelves, and dragged out another few books.

'So, I understand you're not the resident professor of alethiometry at the College?' I asked her. The truth was, I did not understand how someone less than fifty years old could have skills enough to be a professor of alethiometry at all, but I was neither sufficiently rude nor audacious to ask her that.

'No,' she said without turning round, still writing. 'Officially, Jordan doesn't have a professor of alethiometry, but I'll be teaching it and theory of literature here for the next few years. In a while I plan to travel, perhaps teach somewhere else, perhaps go into the Foreign Service.'

I hardly caught the last part of her answer. '_Theory _of literature?' I asked with barely concealed disdain. Some new-fangled fad course, no doubt.

She turned around smiling, hearing my tone of voice. 'Yes,' she said. 'Stories, if you like. What makes them work. Why we love them.' She picked up a book and returned it to the shelf. 'We study everything from Homer to the Brontës to modern writing. It's a very popular course.'

I decided not to register my opinion on this. A few more minutes ticked by as the pile of books diminished. I could hold off my curiosity no longer.

'Forgive me for asking,' I said, picking up my glasses from the side of the table and putting them on, 'but how is it that you…' I searched for the right words, and she watched me carefully. 'I have heard of people older than you,' I said cautiously, 'who have studied their whole lives, but do not yet have the knowledge necessary to use the alethiometer.'

She sighed, and pushed a wandering strand of hair behind her ear, looking to the ceiling. I realised this was a question that must have been raised many times before. When she did talk, she fixed me with her eyes and spoke strongly.

'Mr Gardiner, I can assure you of my competence in the area of the alethiometer. In all else, in…in bearing, in sense, in etiquette, I may disappoint you, but I would ask for your trust in my abilities in that one area at the very least.'

She held my incredulous gaze levelly for a moment, then resumed her work. The rest of our time in the library passed in silence, except for the rustle of the pages, the scratch of pen on paper and the quiet rasp of Moriana, perched by my side, running her beak through her feathers.

* * *

Our work in the library was finished sooner than I had expected. Lyra pushed the last book back into place on the shelf.

'I suppose I'd better go and make myself presentable,' she said, dusting her hands together. 'Would you mind waiting for me in the entrance hall?'

I nodded. I was beginning to sense that arguing with her would be a waste of time.

She knelt down, and her dæmon jumped into her arms. Holding him close, she walked off and soon disappeared amid the forest of shelves.

Recognizing that I might never find my way out again on my own, I followed her from a distance. When I reached the door I was confronted with the problem of finding my way back to the entrance. But Lyra had disappeared around a corner and in any case I had no desire to ask her, so after a few false starts and doublings-back I found a corridor I thought was familiar and started along it.

Half an hour later, exhausted and extremely frustrated, I entered the huge entrance hall to find her waiting there, soberly dressed now in skirts and Jordan robes with her hair brushed and tied back tidily from her face. She seemed a little amused, but concealed it well.

'Mr Gardiner, you should have asked me if you didn't know the way back from Bodley's,' she said, fixing me with serious blue eyes.

I didn't answer, but I knew she was right. It would be a terrible thing indeed if she should turn out to be sensible after all. I strode past her. Moriana sat aloof and elegant on my wrist.

She followed, checking the steeple clock as she caught up and we emerged into the bright sunlight. I followed her gaze. We had five minutes; it was time enough to walk.

'Forgive my ignorance, Mr Gardiner,' she said as we went, 'but I've never worked with the Justice Department before. What is it exactly that you help them with?'

'Any cases which are crucial, in doubt or difficult to verify are put to the alethiometer,' I said tersely.

'I see.' We entered the market and passed a stall selling exotic fruits. The juicy scents rose in the hot air and drifted over to us as we passed. 'Do you know anything about this particular case?'

I was ashamed to admit that I had not yet studied the details, so instead I pulled the crumpled paper nonchalantly from my pocket and studied it, lifting my glasses with the other hand.

'It's a matter of a contested will,' I said after a moment, hoping she would not notice that this information was new to me. She nodded, and was silent for a while. I took the opportunity of reading and absorbing the rest of the details, then folded the paper up and put it in my pocket.

'Then why are we involved? I thought we were only called in on particularly important cases.'

I adopted what I hoped was a knowledgeable tone. 'I understand there is a lot of money at stake here.'

She nodded briefly.

'And, of course, the fact that the testament in question doesn't exist.'

She was a little shorter than me, and she squinted up at me in the sunlight. 'Why not?'

'The inheritance being disputed belonged to a man who disappeared in mysterious circumstances rather a long time ago. The problem is that he left a substantial amount of money, and no will. It was eventually solved by giving the money to a certain museum to which he frequently contributed, as he had no known heir. But now there is a young German gentleman claiming to be his son, and he is asserting his right to the money. There appears to be no concrete proof either way, and so the Justice Department need our assistance to determine once and for all whether this man is telling the truth, or whether he is an impostor.'

She seemed a little uneasy. I was reluctant to ask why, and so we walked on for a while, leaving the market and starting up the steep hill that led to the Hall of Justice.

'What was the man's name?' she asked finally. There was something like trepidation in her voice.

I couldn't remember. I had to dig the paper out of my pocket and unfold it clumsily, conscious of how unprofessional she must think me. I squinted at the foreign name on the crumpled page, bright in the reflected light.

'Stanislaus Grumman,' I said, and as I did I recognised the name. 'The archaeologist,' I added, a little superfluously.

But she hardly seemed to notice. She had stopped dead, and stood silent and suddenly pale even in the heat. I turned around, watching her curiously. Her dæmon, who had been curled over her shoulders as we were walking, stood up with hackles raised and sparking fur. When she spoke, I was surprised to see it was with suppressed anger.

'I can tell you now, Mr Gardiner, that whoever is claiming to be Stanislaus Grumman's heir is a bounty-hunting liar,' she said, staring at me. 'I don't need an alethiometer to tell me that.'

Of all the unexpected things she could have said, that one threw me the most off guard. I was confused, bewildered, incensed.

'Do you suppose you could enlighten me a little further? Perhaps tell me what makes you so certain?' I said, not even trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice.

She looked at me and opened her mouth, her anger and confusion still evident. Then she shook her head and looked away. 'I can't,' she said quietly.

I checked my watch exasperatedly. We were already running late.

'Well I'm sorry if you have sources you can't divulge,' I said a little bitterly, 'but I believe we are still expected at the Hall of Justice, and perhaps you will find the judge a more suitable recipient than myself for whatever information you may have.' And with that I carried on up the hill, not even turning to see if she was following me.

By the time I reached the grand fluted doors of the building I had surmised that she was not. I glanced down the busy street but there was no sign of her. I shook my head, then pushed open the heavy door to enter the cool marble-floored foyer.

One of the policemen who normally attended the trials was waiting for me. He held out a hand and I shook it perfunctorily.

'Mr Gardiner. Come with me, please. Is Miss Silvertongue not with you?'

I tried to think up a sufficiently damning reply, but the best I could do on the spur of the moment was, 'She was unexpectedly detained.'

The policeman nodded, and we proceeded along a corridor with his German shepherd-dæmon panting behind us. I raised my arm, and Moriana moved to her customary place on my shoulder. I quickly checked my jacket pocket for the alethiometer. It was technically the property of the Ashmolean, and I was perpetually afraid of losing or damaging it.

We soon reached the courtroom. Alethiometry trials were a last resort, and occurred after the original trial was over. The attendance was kept low, out of respect for the concentration of the alethiometrist, and so the courtroom I entered was almost empty save two bewigged barristers, a clerk, the judge, the policeman, myself and a thin and apprehensive-looking young man whom I assumed to be the German claimant. His rat-dæmon eyed me suspiciously as I walked up to the witness box and sat down. The piles of reference books were stacked neatly on a small table beside me, as was customary.

The judge was an elderly, portly man with thick grey eyebrows and almost Dickensian sideburns. He frowned at me, his owl-dæmon perched inscrutably on his robed shoulder, as the clerk held out a thick brown Bible bearing a gilt cross on its cover.

'Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and reveal the verdict of the alethiometer with absolute veracity, so help you God?'

The clerk was a nervous young man who stammered over difficult words. I decided not to prolong his agony.

'I do,' I said quickly, and the grateful clerk escaped hurriedly to an unobtrusive seat.

The judge had been regarding me all this time, and now he spoke in a deep tone. 'Mr Gardiner, we require to know whether this man is the son of Stanislaus Grumman. Nothing more, nothing less.'

I nodded. 'Your Honour, it will take me some time to formulate the question, and a little longer to determine the answer.'

'Mr Gardiner, I am quite aware of the process of reading the alethiometer. You may have all the time you need.'

I took the alethiometer out of my pocket and placed it on the ledge in front of me. The heavy brass rocked a little on the polished wood as I searched through the reference books I needed. After a while, frequently consulting both the books and the symbols on the alethiometer, I had prepared the question. The German gentleman shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

I picked up the alethiometer and took a deep breath, settling myself into the state of mind I needed. It was difficult with so many people watching me intently, but I watched the calm, purposeless swinging of the needle and focused myself. I began to turn the small winding-wheels to the symbols I needed: the wild man, which stood for paternity; the compass, which meant scientific exploration, which meant Stanislaus Grumman; and the cornucopia, which meant riches.

I relaxed, and settled the levels in my mind, then composed the question: _Is this man Stanislaus Grumman's son, and should he inherit his wealth?_

The instrument responded, and it took a few times of repeating the cycle for me to get it clear enough to note down. The long, dark needle wandered and flicked onto and off the lute and the Madonna in a complex pattern of stops and starts. I stared at the golden disk, checked the books, stared again. I could not believe what I was seeing, but the meaning was unmistakeable.

_Listen to the girl._

I blinked slowly out of my trance and replaced the alethiometer in my pocket. The judge and the barristers were regarding me with the same half-bored curiosity. The young gentleman looked decidedly ill.

'Mr Gardiner, have you obtained an answer?' asked the judge in ponderous tones.

I wondered what to tell them. I knew what the message meant, but I was ashamed to admit its true substance. I settled for telling them what they needed to know.

'Your Honour, this man is not the son of Stanislaus Grumman.'

The young man looked up at me in desperation.

The judge glanced at him, then back at me. 'You are quite sure?'

'Quite sure.' The young man said something vile in German and buried his head in his hands.

'Thank you very much, Mr Gardiner, that will be all. If we require your services again Mayor Parrish will notify you.'

I stood up and followed the policeman out of the courtroom, shooting a parting glance at the man I had just proved false. He caught my gaze and held it with hatred until I was beyond his sight.

I left the Hall of Justice perhaps even more confused than I had been when I entered. I didn't return to St Stephen's; I set out instead for Jordan College, determined to find out what was going on.

* * *

Lyra was in her office when I arrived. The room was spacious and wooden-panelled, like a great deal of Jordan, but sparingly furnished with a bookcase, a heavy leather-topped desk and two studded chairs being the main features. It had taken a good deal of wandering through obscure corridors, asking clueless students and indulging in guesswork to get there, and my temper had not improved. I stood fuming in the doorway preparing my angry tirade. She seemed subdued; she looked up from the paper she had been studying to meet my gaze.

I settled for a direct approach. 'How did you know that man was not Stanislaus Grumman's son?'

She sighed and turned around in her chair, looking out of the window over Oxford. We were quite high up, and the people travelling the bright quadrangle below could be blocked out with a thumb. Further away, the shadowed bulk of another college rose over heat-hazed rooftops.

'Didn't you ask the alethiometer?' she said quietly, resting her chin on her hand.

I swallowed. 'It told me to listen to you.'

She nodded slowly, then turned around until she was facing me. She took a deep breath, as though preparing herself for something, and looked up. She rested her hand on the red-brown fur of her dæmon.

'Stanislaus Grumman was not born in this world. His real name was John Parry; he was an Englishman, an explorer, and he stumbled into this world through a portal in the North about twenty-five years ago. He had only one son, and he returned to the world of his birth.'

Her face was strained as she spoke, but I barely noticed. I was confounded by her words.

'What are you saying?' She held my gaze as I walked towards her. 'Is this your idea of a joke?'

This angered her. 'Mr Gardiner, if you are so intent on getting an explanation I suggest you should hear me out, rather than questioning my sincerity. Now do you want to hear this, or not?'

I stood silent for a moment; for the second time since meeting her I found myself with nothing to say. She relaxed a little, nodded, and gestured towards the second chair. I pulled it up to the desk and sat down, feeling a little uncomfortable. Moriana shifted from foot to foot, her claws indenting the padded green leather of the arm. I sat there as Lyra spoke, looking calmly out of the window, and I did as I had been told. I listened.

She was a wonderful storyteller. As she spoke, the words seemed to come alive and the scenes they described danced around me as I sat hunched and sceptical in my chair. I shall not attempt to repeat the tale she told. Suffice it to say that I was left shaken, moved and unsure what to believe. When she had done we sat in silence for a while.

In any normal circumstances, confronted with a tale of the like that she told me, I would have dismissed it out of hand as the fantasy of an overactive imagination. But there was something about the earnest, peaceful conviction of this young woman as she related calmly things which she could not have seen, something that made me reluctant to call her a liar.

I decided to grasp onto the only part that I was familiar with. 'You're quite sure Grumman – I'm sorry, John Parry, you're sure he didn't father any children in this…' I could not bring myself to say it. 'Here?'

'Utterly,' she said with conviction. 'He was faithful to his wife.'

There was quiet for a while longer. The rational, detached part of my mind was relieved that the young man in the courtroom had, in fact, been an impostor. Then I realised that fact was only reliable if the rest of what she had told me was true. I felt dizzy. The only sound was the quiet ticking of the carriage-clock on the desk. It, and every other ordinary, explicable object in the room, seemed to cry out against what I had just heard.

She looked down at the desk, kneading a fold in the leather between her finger and thumb. 'You don't believe me, do you?'

It was as if she had read my thoughts. I couldn't meet her eyes. I was unsure what to say, and I had no idea what to believe.

'That's all right,' she said, before I could formulate an answer. 'What's important is that you know.'

The room was blanketed in silence. I looked at her, this bizarre, graceful, stubborn woman who was either the best liar in the world or something else entirely that I could not comprehend. I felt something like awe, and I realised I wanted to know more about her story. I wanted to believe her.

'Do you…' I paused. 'Would you like any more help in the library? It seems like a mammoth task, and I'm sure you get no help from the students.'

She looked up, surprised, and smiled. 'Thank you. I'd appreciate that.'

* * *

And so, for the next few days, my working hours were spent in the musty depths of Bodley's Library with Lyra, cataloguing endless volumes in the cavernous, bottomless shelves. She was far better company than I had expected. As I talked with her, I found she displayed a keen intelligence; she was well-read, a product of her long time at Jordan, as I discovered in our discussions about the volumes we unearthed. What I had mistaken before for wilfulness, I found was a strong, measured confidence tempered by a good sense of humour that reminded me of Estella. She was perhaps occasionally a little more impertinent than one should be towards a senior professor of alethiometry, but I found myself prepared to forgive her. Occasionally she would talk about what she had told me in her office, and I would find myself marvelling again at her conviction and the vividness of her descriptions. There were times when I found myself wholeheartedly believing her.

I was often tempted to consult the alethiometer to determine whether she was telling the truth. It would be a simple enough question to ask. But I held back, perhaps out of fear that she was lying, perhaps because I sensed it would be wrong. It felt dishonest; it felt like betraying her trust.

And so I listened without comment on those rare occasions when she spoke of it, and I remained in my bewildered state of half-belief. She seemed to accept that I would never be quite sure, and she did not pressurise me to answer her. I believe she found it a relief to be finally able to talk to someone, however sceptical, about what had befallen her.

And then, one particularly humid afternoon, when the heat was so enveloping it threatened to overflow into a storm, she burst in on me as I was cataloguing a first edition. She was wild-eyed, intense, terrified. She walked quickly up to the table where I sat, her dæmon sparking and restless in her arms. Her hair had come loose and stray wisps floated about her face as she bit her lip in distracted agitation.

'Where's the alethiometer?' she asked abruptly, her attention focused on me so powerfully it was almost frightening.

'Where's yours?' I asked. I had been resentful before that she possessed her own alethiometer, but now I was only concerned that she had lost it.

She was impatient. 'I left it in my office, there's no time to get it now. I need yours. Please.' She seemed desperate.

I looked at her concernedly for a moment, then dug in my pocket and retrieved the heavy brass object. She took it with trembling fingers and went over to a chair, sitting down and placing the instrument in her lap. But I could see what was happening: she was still too agitated, her hands trembled as she tried to force herself into the state of mind.

I walked over and gently took the alethiometer from her. She looked up at me with blazing hate for a moment, then looked down and put her hand to her forehead. 'I'm sorry.'

'Calm down,' I advised her. She sat, breathing deeply, eyes fixed on the carpet pattern. 'What happened?'

She gazed searchingly at me, then laughed. 'You'll never believe me.'

I felt a little insulted. 'Try me.'

'Let's just say I had an unexpected visitor.' She paused, then walked over to the pile of books she had been sorting the previous day. A large green tome caught her eye, and she picked it up. Flicking through the pages, she walked absently back. She appeared to find what she was looking for, and placed the book on the chair, pointing to an illustration.

I took off my glasses and peered at the small pen-and-ink drawing. It showed a naked man standing spreadeagled in the rays of a stylised sun. Behind him two carefully drawn feathered wings framed his figure. The caption, in dense Gothic print, read '_Seraphim_'.

I put my spectacles back on and stared at her, my mind spinning. 'An angel?'

She nodded. Her breathing was easy now, and her dæmon jumped lightly to her shoulder, curling around her neck.

I decided that suspending my disbelief would be the best course of action for the time being. 'What did he say?'

'She,' Lyra corrected. 'Xaphania. She said…she told me to go to the Botanic Garden tomorrow night. To meet with Will again.'

I was confused. I hoped my countenance told her so.

'Will and I…every Midsummer's Day, we…we meet in the Botanic Garden. We sit on the same bench, and we're together, in a way.' She looked up at me.

I began to understand something I had not fully realised before. 'Were you and Will…were you…in love with him?'

'Yes,' she said calmly. 'I think part of me still is.'

I thought of what she had told me. They had been in love; and they had been separated, in the most devastating and eternal way possible; a way that I understood only too well. I began to feel an even greater awe for her calm, her serenity, her grace under fire.

She took the alethiometer back, and began to turn the wheels, speaking as she did so. 'Xaphania told me that we have to find the other way to travel between the worlds. I…I'm not sure if I understand what that means.'

She frowned, and then her face settled into the composed mood I recognized as she brushed her hair behind her ear. She followed the needle with quiet purpose as it twitched and swung. Her dæmon, too, followed the progress of the thin dark line around the gold-and-ivory circle. She watched it for a long time. Then she frowned, got up and disappeared amongst the shelves, I assumed to find the books of readings. It amazed me that she could hold all the information in her mind as she went. She returned a little while later.

'There was one meaning I wasn't sure of,' she explained matter-of-factly, then sat down, rubbing her eyes.

'Ah,' I said, not seeing at all. 'So…' I desperately wanted to be thrown some small lifebelt of sanity, and I looked at her pleadingly.

'The alethiometer says the other way of travelling is how the angels travel. But angels are mostly consciousness and not matter. So if we use this way of travelling it will only be with our minds. It's…' She paused reflectively. 'Like imagining yourself somewhere, except more real. But not like real, physical travel.' She sighed, and looked down. Her agitated mood seemed to have passed and in its place was a measured, purposeful calm.

I was more lost than ever. Too lost, in fact, to spend any more time in the stuffy library. I left her sitting there and went for a brisk walk as the rain began to fall.

Two hours later, drenched and back in my St Stephen's chambers, I was none the wiser. I thought through the whole thing again and again in my mind, but could make no coherent sense of it. Tired and convinced that at least one of us was going mad, I decided to give my weary brain a rest and go to bed.

* * *

The next day, Lyra did not come to the library. I waited, past lunchtime and through the afternoon, but she did not appear. I even tried to make my way up to her office again, but when I eventually navigated my way through the tortuous corridors she was not there. I can't deny that I was worried. After the events of the previous day I feared she might be doing something stupid, or dangerous, or most probably both.

I fidgeted at my desk until late evening, and then it hit me. She had said the day before that the angel had told her to go to the Botanic Garden. That was where she would be, and what she was attempting to do I did not know.

I am not entirely sure why I did what I did next. I think, primarily, I had grown strangely fond of Lyra despite myself, and I did not wish her to come to any harm. But deeper there was a desire to know, once and for all, whether any of what she had told me was true.

And so I got up from the table and doused the naphtha lamp, then left the library ignoring Moriana's warnings. I made my way out of Jordan College, navigating the anbarically illuminated corridors until I reached the final door and stepped out into a cold, rainswept night.

The city was eerily silent. The freezing rain had driven any revellers inside, and the only signs of life were flickering naphtha or anbaric lights in windows, and a lonely van at the end of the road. As I passed it I saw a sign in the grubby window proclaiming that it sold hot drinks. The vendor was dozing quietly inside, his snores quivering the fur of his black cat-dæmon curled around his neck. I remembered walking this way with Estella, talking together through the rain as we went, she in her white dress as pale and lovely as I had ever seen her, with Solomon curled about her neck like a living scarf, black fur against her white skin. Black orchids, her favourite flowers, blooming in their perpetual vase by the silent grey tombstone. I walked quickly past the oblivious sleepers, further down the dark puddled pavement. Moriana launched off my shoulder with a flurry of feathers and a whoosh of air close to my ear, and soared upwards, a pale shape in the damp air. I felt a tug at my heart as she climbed higher, and silently called her down. She stooped quickly and landed on my outstretched arm. The pricks of pain where her claws dug through the cloth of my jacket comforted me, and woke me from the strange trance I had fallen into as I walked. The Gardens were just around the corner, and I approached them with a curious quickening of my heart.

The cast-iron gate was closed, and a sturdy padlock on an iron chain secured the garden from trespassers. For a moment I stood dumfounded in the darkness; then, rebuking myself for my stupidity, I hoisted myself onto the wall. I was not quite as limber as I had been in my younger days, and it took me a little perseverance before I could successfully tackle the slippery railings and reach the dew-soaked grass beyond. The shock ran through my feet as they hit the ground. I set off in no particular direction, not sure where Lyra was but convinced she was in the gardens somewhere.

I might have wandered blindly in the plant-filled dimness for hours before I found her. It seemed that time was peculiarly suspended as I conducted my silent search, and doubly so when I came upon her, stretched out on a bench at the edge of a clearing. I stood motionless, my breath freezing in the air. She appeared asleep; her eyes were closed, and she lay prone against the wood like a beautiful tableau of Juliet in her tomb, her upturned cheeks and her hanging hair radiant silver in the moonlight. I had a vision of Estella, her cold pale lips open and unspeaking. I moved closer, tiptoeing as if I were afraid to disturb her. And as I did so I realised she was not sleeping. No, there was something deeper than sleep at work here; there was a feeling of complete and utter _absence_. She simply was not there. The fact terrified me as it awed me. I noticed, almost as a casual observation, that her dæmon was nowhere to be seen. I backed away, horror mingling with the feeling that I was in the presence of something that I should not forget.

I had little sleep when I returned to St Stephen's that night.

* * *

I was not sure whether to be surprised or terrified when she walked calmly into the library the next morning. I sat staring at her, almost expecting an explanation, but she picked up a pile of books and began sorting them, bidding me a brief hello without looking up. I thought I could detect a change in her. She seemed to walk more purposefully, as though her feet were finally on the ground.

I kept up the pretence of working for another few minutes, but eventually I could hold off no longer. I picked up my glasses and put them on.

'What exactly were you doing in the gardens last night?'

She stopped what she was doing. After a pause, she turned around, speaking softly.

'I was talking to Will.'

She held my gaze for a moment, then resumed stacking the books. I watched her, thinking. Perhaps I would never understand fully, but I believed I was beginning to.

We were silent for a while. I tried to write the details of another book on the fading card, blotching the dark ink into a stain that spread slowly through like an opening flower. Estella, smiling through the rain in her white dress.

'How did you do it?' I blurted out, impulsively.

She turned around again, a quizzical expression on her face. 'Do what?'

'Carry on,' I said. 'After he had gone.' I thought of the ashen figure, lying peaceful as a sleeper on the bier, and something gripped my heart.

She looked down for quite a while, tracing the pattern of the carpet with a finger. Then she smiled ruefully, and looked up at me again.

'It's stupid really,' she said, 'but…' She paused, her hand resting on the fur of her dæmon for support. 'When I first went to St Sophia's, I was going through a bad time – I missed Will so badly, and it seemed that no one understood me, but I think the truth was I wasn't _letting_ anyone understand. I was just – closing myself off from the world. And then, I read…I read about oysters.' She laughed a little, and I smiled in response. 'When an oyster is wounded, when it's hurt – that's how a pearl is made. It takes something painful, and makes something beautiful. I mean –' She searched for words. 'When you've been hurt that badly, you have a choice. You can let it make you bitter. You can try to forget. Or you can hold on to it, treasure it, but not let it break you. That's what I thought, when I read that, and that's what I've tried to do.'

I nodded, taking in her words. I took off my glasses again and twisted them around in my hands.

'Magnus,' she said gently.

I looked back up at her and replaced my glasses.

'Look at your life,' she said. 'You…you live and work in one of the most beautiful cities in the country, you have a skill and a job that most people can only envy…' She smiled at me with a wisdom that was beyond her years. 'Don't you think it's time you started enjoying it? She would want you to.'

I looked at her sharply, unaware that she knew.

'I guessed,' she said. She put down the book she had been holding and folded her hands in her lap. 'Do you remember what I told you about the world of the dead?'

I remembered. I imagined Estella in the flowers, in the breeze through the half-open library window, in the dust motes spiralling around me where I sat. I looked around me at the crazy beauty of the room, the world, and I could see her face.

'She's waiting for you,' she continued, smiling, 'just like Will's going to be waiting for me. She's waiting, and one day you'll go where she went, and you can find her again. But before you do, you have to make your own story.' She looked at me earnestly. 'Do you understand?'

For perhaps the first time in that bizarre week, I believed I did.

* * *

The next time I visit her quiet turfed residence the night sky is clear and untroubled. The grass still grows in its unruly dominion over the cracked path; the yews still hunch quiet and immense as monoliths over the badly-tended plots; but there is a feeling in the still air that lends the morbid, familiar scene a serene moonlit beauty. I make my way up. I have trodden this same path so many times I can almost imagine my deep, embedded footprints yawning before me as I walk.

Her grave waits for me patiently. My old, doddering feet finally find the mossy heap of ground and I kneel, wincing, supporting myself with my hands pressed against the damp greened earth. I take the orchids and place them gently in the vase. Its clearness has gone, I notice, dulled by the weather and the earth to a nondescript grey. I arrange the blooms clumsily and sit back on my heels, breathing in deeply as I do so. The graveyard is by no means silent. If I listen carefully I can hear a hundred different sounds: the gentle breeze in the heavy yew branches; the rustle of leaves under a hedge; the quiet swish of Moriana turning her head to stare through the darkness. I reach up instinctively to touch my dæmon, taking comfort from the feeling of her warm feathers under my fingers. My other hand rests on the mounded turf where she lies. Or lay. I reflect on the curious symmetry of it all. Just as her body is absorbed and becomes part of the earth, so her soul dissipates into unity, somewhere so close I could touch her with my outstretched hand. As I sit there in that quiet, living garden of the dead, I am slowly filled with a faith I never believed myself capable of.

I have come here, to this spot, more times than I can count. I will come here innumerable more times before I die. One thing I have always known is that I am not afraid to follow her down to the place where she is gone. But what I have discovered in these last few days, what I know I have to hold on to, is this: I must not be afraid to live.

I pick myself up, slowly brushing the damp soil from my clothes, and my dæmon and I leave the churchyard.

_Estella Marianne Gardiner_

_Requiesce in pace_

* * *

C'est fini. Thank you for reading, and I hope you liked it. :)

~ Celerity


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